Tag Archives: blood sugar

Today I watched a great TED talk by Dr. Rangan Chaterjee discussing his own journey in the discovery and implementation of a functional medicine approach to caring for his patients. The concept of using basic science and clinical science to diagnose and treat the root causes of illness, rather than treating symptoms, has been around for more than two decades. This approach has recently started to attract more attention, especially within the community of younger physicians who have become more dissatisfied with the frustrations of traditional allopathic medicine.

Here is the talk. Dr. Chatterjee covers lots of ground in a passionate and informative talk.

Enjoy this talk. If you would like to learn about how a functional medicine approach can CURE ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE then watch this video of Dr. Bredesen who gave this lecture at a meeting of the American College of Nutrition.

Doctor Bredesen, an acclaimed neuroscientist, researcher, and more recently a brilliant clinician, has been criticized by the academic research community for implementing a clinical research protocol that addresses more than one variable at a time! Unfortunately, medical science has been handcuffed by the drug-model of clinical research wherein only one variable (drug vs. placebo for example) is studied. But if an illness has many potential contributing root causes, changing only one variable is doomed to failure, as Dr. Bredesen explains in this lecture.

Sleep well, eat clean, get outdoors every morning to help keep your circadian rhythm and biological clock in order.

By now most of you have already heard about the study published in JAMA that reveals an unsavory historical scenario wherein the sugar industry funded an academic review paper that diverted the medical community’s attention from sugar as a vector for disease and erroneously placed it on saturated fat and cholesterol consumption. You can read about it by clicking on the following link.

The internal sugar industry documents, recently discovered by a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, and published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, suggest that five decades of research into the role of nutrition and heart disease, including many of today’s dietary recommendations, may have been largely shaped by the sugar industry.

Here is the abstract of the article published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association).

Early warning signals of the coronary heart disease (CHD) risk of sugar (sucrose) emerged in the 1950s. We examined Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) internal documents, historical reports, and statements relevant to early debates about the dietary causes of CHD and assembled findings chronologically into a narrative case study. The SRF sponsored its first CHD research project in 1965, a literature review published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which singled out fat and cholesterol as the dietary causes of CHD and downplayed evidence that sucrose consumption was also a risk factor. The SRF set the review’s objective, contributed articles for inclusion, and received drafts. The SRF’s funding and role was not disclosed. Together with other recent analyses of sugar industry documents, our findings suggest the industry sponsored a research program in the 1960s and 1970s that successfully cast doubt about the hazards of sucrose while promoting fat as the dietary culprit in CHD. Policymaking committees should consider giving less weight to food industry–funded studies and include mechanistic and animal studies as well as studies appraising the effect of added sugars on multiple CHD biomarkers and disease development.

This disturbing conspiracy reveals yet another industry sponsored distortion of science which had great impact on the health of our nation. The impact is accelerating today as the epidemics of obesity and diabetes rage out of control. But sugar consumption has not just been tied to obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and strokes. Sugar added foods and beverages have likely contributed to dementia, many forms of cancer and other chronic debilitating diseases. Sugar and refined carbohydrates mediate these effects by increasing systemic inflammation and contributing to insulin resistance. Inflammation and insulin resistance are pathways to many disease processes. Metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes) is the hallmark combination of multiple abnormalities with insulin resistance as the underlying root cause. Prolonged insulin resistance leads to type 2 diabetes and contributes to heart attacks, strokes, cancer and dementia. In fact dementia is often referred to as type 3 diabetes, mediated in large part by insulin resistance in the brain.

Dr. Fung’s genius excels at simple, direct explanations with clarity and humor. His analogies are often hilarious and through his humor and logic he communicates simple but important truths. The major message is that obesity is a hormonal problem. Obesity is not a disease of excess caloric intake, nor is it a disease of sedentary lifestyle. Dr. Fung cites study after study in which obese patients (young and old alike) consumed less calories and exercised more with dismal results. He reviews the medical literature on the effects of refined carbohydrates and sugar on insulin and other hormones. He explains how sustained high insulin levels cause insulin resistance and weight gain. He clearly and decisively explains how 100 calories of sugar or flour effects the human body in a manner immensely different from 100 calories of broccoli.

“Have you ever seen anyone get fat from eating too much broccoli?”

Most importantly, Dr. Fung provides the solution that has helped hundreds of his patients. The solution is elimination of refined carbohydrates and sugar in combination with intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting (consuming only water, coffee, tea, broth) for 24 -36 hours a few to several times per month helps to reset the brain’s set point for body weight. When combined with restriction of sugar and refined carbohydrate (foods made with flour) intermittent fasting presents a powerful tool to not only lose weight but to manage diabetes and prevent the many complications of obesity and diabetes.

Intermittent fasting increases the human metabolic rate, Your body actually burns more calories at rest per hour during fasting. The effects of intermittent fasting are distinctly different from what has been referred to as the “starvation response”. The “starvation response” ironically and confusingly refers to human studies that restricted (reduced) caloric intake but continued low calorie meals throughout the day. It is unfortunate that those studies coined the term “starvation response” which is a decrease in resting metabolic rate. Caloric restriction diets reduce the human metabolic rate and therein lies the cause for the failure of all caloric restriction diets.

The confusion of these two approaches and their effects on human metabolism have clouded the discussion of obesity for decades.

Dr. Fung’s communication skills can be enjoyed by reading his book and viewing his many talks on YouTube.

His book and lectures should be mandatory for every medical student, physician, nutritionist and public health official. His book’s exhaustive medical references document the science that supports his theory and his clinical solution.

So take a leap, click on the link above for his book and the links below for some of his videos which are free on-line.

I think that Dr. Fung’s book is the most important book published on this topic in the 21st Century. His work will have profound influence during the next few decades. I encourage you to enjoy his genius.

This new film created by a GP in UK, funded by small contributions, describes how elimination of added sugar and implementation of carbohydrate restriction can cure diabetes and result in weight loss. The film also covers how the low-fat craze, based on bad science (ignoring the full data) began with Ancel Keyes and evolved into arguably the worst public health disaster experienced by the modern world.

There have been multiple studies comparing “lifestyle” interventions to bariatric surgery in treating obesity and diabetes. Repeatedly the authors conclude that bariatric surgery is superior to “lifestyle” interventions.

But none of these studies have utilized very low carbohydrate diets or medically supervised fasting as a lifestyle intervention. Instead, the diets employed for the “lifestyle” intervention are typically an ADA calorie restricted low-fat diet. I find this very frustrating as a physician.

The science in this area has demonstrated that very low carbohydrate diets consistently out-perform the low fat calorie restricted diet in terms of weight loss, blood sugar control, blood pressure control and lipid profiles.

Bariatric surgery carries a mortality rate of up to 3% depending on the surgeon, hospital and other circumstances. As an anesthesiologist and pain management physician I have seen multiple complications of bariatric surgery including but not limited to multiple chronic nutritional deficiencies (malabsorption), hernias, sepsis, renal failure, rhabdomyalisis, respiratory failure requiring prolonged ventilation, multi-organ failure requiring prolonged ICU care, and death.

And although many patients have profound weight loss in the first year after bariatric surgery many patients ultimately gain back most of the weight initially lost.

We need studies that compare bariatric surgery to very low carbohydrate and paleo diets. We need studies that compare bariatric surgery to intermittent medically supervised fasting. Until those studies are performed we should not conclude that bariatric surgery is superior to lifestyle interventions, particularly given the high complication rates of this surgery and the proven effects of VLC diets and medically supervised fasting.

Ever wonder why the public is so confused about nutrition recommendations? Just follow the money and you will understand that most of the professional societies that publish nutrition articles are funded by big food companies that are trying to sell more sugar, refined carbs and junk food. I recently read an excellent post about this topic here:

This theme is repeated by medical journals that are “The Official Journal of the Society of >>>>>>” Just fill in the blanks for just about any medical society. Funding comes from big pharmaceutical companies the same way that funding in the nutrition Journals comes from large (junk) “food” manufacturers.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of very valuable, life-saving drugs out there.

But most chronic human disease in developed societies is generated by various combinations of poor nutrition, lack of exercise, disruption of circadian rhythm, inadequate restorative sleep, stress and lack of social support systems.

The obesity and diabetes epidemics continue to worsen yet the failed dietary advise of major health organizations is slow to respond to the data. Excess refined carbs (especially in the form of “food” made with flour) and added sugar (especially in the form of HFCS) are the major driving forces for obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Red meat is not the culprit, provided the meat is properly sourced (hormone and antibiotic free, grass fed) and cooked in a manner that does not create carcinogens and inflammatory mediators (cook with slow, low, moist heat, high temperature grilling and smoking cause problems, but that topic is for another post).

Americans consume an average 130 pounds per year of added sugar and 140 pounds per year of refined flour. Those are averages so there are many people who consume more. The added sugar is not the white stuff people put in their coffee. It comes in all sorts of forms but is found in energy drinks, soda, lattes and mochas, salad dressing, ketchup, canned soups, canned vegetables, white AND whole grain breads, pasta (even “whole grain”), crackers, breakfast cereal, just about any packaged food that has more than one ingredient on the label. These foods represent 70% of the American diet. The problems created by this situation are enormous and will bankrupt our “healthcare system”. This is a cultural and economic problem.

The solutions are simple but largely ignored in our society. We are creatures of habit and convenience.

Eat whole foods, nothing from a package that has more than one ingredient. Eat meat, seafood, poultry, fresh organic vegetables (6-9 servings per day), fresh organic fruits, and nuts. Meat should be hormone and antibiotic free (free range, grass fed). Seafood should be wild. Poultry should be free range and the eggs should come from free range chickens, ducks, geese.

Do not worry about eating fat as long as it comes from healthy animals and sources such as coconut oil, extra-virgin olive oil, avocado oil and clarified butter (ghee).

Do not use any “vegetable” oils (corn, soy, and other oils from grains or seeds) The vegetable oils are highly refined and inflammatory. They contain easily oxidized omega 6 fats that feed the production of inflammatory mediators in your body and create oxidized LDL leading to atherosclerosis.